teens – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu The official news site for Fordham University. Fri, 19 Apr 2024 16:56:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://now.fordham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/favicon.png teens – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu 32 32 232360065 School of Social Service Receives $1.9 Million to Support Graduate Students of Color and Help Underserved Youth https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/school-of-social-service-receives-1-9-million-to-support-graduate-students-of-color-and-help-underserved-youth/ Mon, 16 Aug 2021 19:05:45 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=151580 Abigail Ross, Ph.D., assistant professor of social work, along with several members of the Graduate School of Social Service faculty and staff, were awarded nearly $1.9 million in federal funding in June from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as part of a project called PIPELINE for Youth Health (Prioritizing Integrated Care, Prevention and Equity: Leading Interprofessional NYC-Based Efforts to for Youth Health).  The project aims to train social workers from diverse backgrounds to work with young people facing health and mental health issues. A full 60% of the funds will go toward supporting students in Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Work.

Pandemic Exacerbated Health Challenges in Communities of Color

“While we are not yet on the other side of COVID-19, we know that this pandemic—which is likely the largest public health crisis we will see in our lifetimes—has been nothing short of a collective trauma,” said Ross, who spearheaded the grant effort and is the principal investigator. “It has disproportionately affected communities of color and has placed New York City’s youngest residents at risk of a host of adverse health and behavioral health outcomes. To mitigate these challenges, there is a dire need for a well-prepared behavioral health social work workforce equipped with skills in prevention, interprofessional practice, and health equity that mirrors the population most affected.”

Addressing Need for Social Workers from Diverse Backgrounds

The project, which is part of HRSA’s Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training Program for Professionals, sets out to address workforce shortages in social work and lack of diversity in the profession while equipping workers with skills designed to address the potential impact of adverse childhood experiences, said Debra McPhee, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Social Work.

“The overarching goal of PIPELINE for Youth Health is to create a sustainable pipeline of racially and ethnically diverse behavioral health practitioners equipped with the skills needed to work effectively with youth,” said McPhee.

Each year, a total of 27 student fellows—26 MSW students and one doctoral candidate—will be supported with stipends to offset the cost of tuition while they participate in a specialized training program that prioritizes prevention, integrated care, and health equity for underserved young people. The project has been funded for five years; 75% of the student fellowship slots are reserved for students of color.

The PIPELINE for Youth Health team is led by Ross and includes Binta Alleyne-Green, Ph.D., associate professor, Larry Farmer, Ph.D., associate professor, Janna Heyman, Ph.D., professor and Henry C. Ravazzin Chair; Christie Hunnicut, director of field education; Liz Matthews, Ph.D., assistant professor; Yvette Sealy, Ph.D., associate professor; Linda White-Ryan, Ph.D., associate dean of students; and Anne Williams-Isom, D.Min., professor and Dumpson Chair in Child Welfare.

Ross said the new training program will prioritize prevention, integrated care and interprofessional practice, and health equity in the youth behavioral health workforce. The program begins this fall, when students will participate in required coursework; a PIPELINE Integrative Seminar; and a special speaker series featuring innovations in prevention-oriented practice with children, youth, and their families.

“We were already facing a major shortage of youth behavioral health practitioners here in New York City even before COVID-19 emerged. The need is now greater than ever,” said Ross. “I am very excited to work with the PIPELINE for Youth Health team to develop and implement a specialized behavioral health training program that will greatly enhance the social work workforce dedicated to serving the children, youth, and families of New York City.”

 

]]>
151580
Authors’ Remix: History of Racism for Young People https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/authors-remix-history-of-racism-for-young-people/ Tue, 09 Jun 2020 22:15:09 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=137403 Lovia Gyarkye, Jason Reynolds, and Ibram X. Kendi discuss “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” at the Bronx Is Reading book festival.“There’s a whole population of people who are 10-year-olds, who are 14, 16, who are going to inherit the world we live in,” said middle school and young adult author Jason Reynolds, “and are currently on the front lines [of the demonstrations], who are going to need the language and the context of why we are where we are in order to push us toward a more antiracist world.”

Reynolds was one of the keynote speakers at the Bronx Book Festival produced by The Bronx Is Reading, and co-sponsored by Fordham’s Office of the Chief Diversity Officer. The festival normally takes place on Fordham Plaza across the street from Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, but this year it was held virtually on June 5 due to the pandemic.

For Reynolds’ session, he was in conversation with author Ibram X. Kendi, Ph.D., professor of history and international relations and the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. Bronx native Lovia Gyarkye, associate editor at New York Times Magazine Labs, moderated.

Kendi’s National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (Bold Type Books, 2016) examines how racism shaped five historical figures—from abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to activist Angela Davis. The book portrays its subjects in the harsh light of truth, rather than a heroic glow.

In response to the need for middle school history books that address how racism shapes lives, Kendi tapped Reynolds to help in a retelling of his book for young people. The result was Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2020), which is described as a “remix and NOT a history book,” so as to not scare off young readers who might otherwise turn their nose up at a history lesson.

The adult book sets out to define the terms of where people land on the racism spectrum. There are three archetypes, writes Kendi: the segregationists, the assimilationists, and the anti-racists. In the young adult book, Reynolds calls them the haters, the likers, and the lovers.

“Everybody knows a hater,” said Reynolds. “But here, [the hater]is a racist that is overtly separatist due to the color of your skin. The likers are people who walk with you as long as you act like them. And the [lovers are]anti-racist people who believe that all people are equal, a basic level of equality for all humanity; these are the people who love us. This was the architecture to frame the discussion.”

Both authors said that they did not have the most engaging experiences as young people in history classes, in part because the text assumed that young people would be inherently interested, rather than doing the hard work of pulling the reader into the story.

“Jason liberated himself and the young readers by saying this is not a history book,” said Kendi.

Unvarnished Heroes

Both the adult and young adult versions also avoid a common trope in historic biographies by exposing the subjects’ human complexities.

“One of the things we do with ourselves and people we admire is we deny that we did wrong or our heroes did wrong,” said Kendi.

As it would turn out, some abolitionists could have been mere “likers.”

“We wanted to define terms of racism and looked for people who defined those terms, and even if it was someone who we admired, we were going to hold fast to that definition,” he said.

Humans, he said, have good qualities and not-so-good qualities.

“If we honor their legacy in its totality we have to look at the whole picture,” said Reynolds, “not just what they were doing then, but in our present history as citizens.”

Demonstrations and Examining the White Self

The authors then took the same approach when they discussed white people participating in present-day protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

“There’s something going on with white folks; I don’t pretend to know what it is, because I’m not white,” said Reynolds, stressing that conversations need to be had around self-interest. He said an underlying motivator for white demonstrators could well be the need to relieve shame and guilt.

He also stressed the need for white people to do the work and educate themselves about racism.

“You have to work for it,” Reynolds said, adding that the process should not be rushed. “Pace yourself, because if you want to do less harm, slow down. Don’t go trying to save the world. Slow down and save your family. Work on yourself and what’s happening in your household. Read with your spouses and your parents. Figure out how to have different conversations.”

Kendi added that through the demonstrations, white people were being radicalized by seeing first-hand the unchecked police aggression.

“They never had to feel what it is to be Black in this country, which is to be constantly terrorized by police violence, but white people went out there to demonstrate against police violence and they suffered police violence, so they came face-to-face with precisely what they were demonstrating against and then their parents came face-to-face with that, their friends came face-to-face with that, their whole community came face-to-face with that,” he said.

 

]]>
137403
Study: Doctors Need to Be Proactive in Advising Gay Teens https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/study-doctors-need-to-be-proactive-in-advising-gay-teens/ Mon, 09 Apr 2018 14:51:37 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=87852 If talking to teens about sex is difficult for parents, imagine the awkwardness their physicians face when broaching the subject. Many doctors simply don’t ask about it, said Celia Fisher, Ph.D., professor of psychology and the Marie Ward Doty University Chair in Ethics. The subject gets touchier when it comes to asking young men about gay sex.

Celia Fisher
Celia Fisher

Fisher was the principle investigator on a recently completed quantitative study that resulted in a paper published in the journal AIDS and Behavior titled “Patient-Provider Communication Barriers and Facilitators to HIV and STI Preventive Services for Adolescent MSM.” In the study, Fisher found that young males who have sex with males were reticent to discuss sex with their doctors. But when doctors initiated the conversation, they were more forthcoming with vital information that could affect their health.

The nationwide study was conducted anonymously via a  questionnaire linked to from a trusted website frequented by gay teens. It surveyed 198 adolescent gay males. Several participants said they completed the survey because they wanted to help their community.

“This is the first study to ask kids about their attitudes on getting sexual health care,” said Fisher, who directs Fordham’s Center for Ethics Education. “Pediatricians and general practitioners are the gateway of youth experiences with health care, but [these patients]only go once a year, so this is an ideal time to ask [about their sexual activity].”

Fisher said there are several studies that have found that most doctors are not trained to ask questions relevant to sexual minorities, and many doctors assume the youth they treat are straight. Furthermore, the language of sexuality has evolved for young people.

“The other issue is that doctors should not use terms like ‘gay,’ or ‘LGBT,’ because for many young people the terminology is in flux,” said Fisher. “Youth no longer identify with these traditional behaviors; the question should be ‘Who are you attracted to sexually?’”

But most importantly, Fisher said, the conversation needs to be initiated by the doctors, even though doctors often have the “misperception that the kid would be uncomfortable.”

“Physicians need to be well versed in safety advice and should be able to communicate to all,” she said. “The kids don’t bring it up because they think the doctor will be prejudiced.”

Another concern among the young men was that the doctors might tell their parents, but Fisher said most states allow doctors to provide information to teens on sexual health, including HIV prevention, without parental consent. Some states, like New York, even allow doctors to prescribe PrEP, the pill that protects against HIV, to minors without getting parents involved.

“The grey area is if the child is having sex with an adult that might be considered sexual abuse and that needs to be reported,” said Fisher.

But such cases only reinforce the need for doctors need to be proactive in their conversations with youth, she said. Even if the relationship is legal and consensual, some youth lack assertiveness skills to demand a condom from an older or aggressive peer partner, she said.

“They need advice specific to males having sex with males,” said Fisher. “Giving gay males advice on sex with females is useless, but when they’re aware of those specifics they’ll be safer and healthier.”

]]>
87852
Study Finds Safe Bathrooms for Trans Teens Lead to Better Performance In Class https://now.fordham.edu/colleges-and-schools/graduate-school-of-social-service/study-finds-safe-bathrooms-for-trans-teens-lead-to-better-performance-in-class/ Mon, 03 Apr 2017 15:55:03 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=66436 A Fordham professor’s new study in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence has found that ensuring safe access to bathrooms and other school facilities for trans students is vital to their education.

Laura Wernick
Laura Wernick

“It seems obvious, but when you control for the safety, the students actually performed better,” said Laura Wernick, Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator and an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS). “And ‘safe’ is the keyword here, because no matter where you are in the political spectrum you wouldn’t want kids beating each other up.”

The study, “Gender Identity Disparities in Bathroom Safety and Wellbeing Among High School Students,” employed a “climate survey” conducted in 2014 of five public high schools in southeast Michigan to examine the relationship between students’ gender identity, how safe they felt using bathroom facilities, and their schoolwork. The article was co-authored with her research assistant Alex Kulick, Ph.D., and Matthew Chin, Ph.D, assistant professor of social work at GSS.

“The experience that trans youth have with bathrooms has an impact on their grades and their self esteem,” she said. “This is such an important bodily function, that it’s going to have an effect when you place a student in a situation where they have to hold it in because they’re afraid.”

Very few empirical studies have focused on this issue within the context of high schools, said Wernick.

The study’s questionnaire was generated by the students themselves in a process known as community-based participatory action research. The teens had participated in a study before, but Wernick said they felt the questions hadn’t addressed all their concerns. Working with Wernick, the teens created an organizing model that would ultimately cross multiple identities—race, class, gender, and religion, to name a few.

“It’s an interesting model because we have young people from the schools, and they can word the questions to that particular school,” she said. “It speaks to the power of youth taking leadership.”

Through a coalition of several queer/straight alliance clubs in and around Detroit, the investigators were able to survey two rural, two suburban, and one urban high school.

In determining each school’s climate, the study gauged the extent to which the young people experienced microaggressions or outright slurs, physical harassment, or both. An earlier version of the study was conducted in 2007, but this 2014 survey was revised to incorporate more more questions on gender identity, bathrooms, and self-esteem issues. 

In the three years that have passed from the initial survey to its publication this month, the nation has seen a sea change in politics, not all of it favorable to transgender students, noted Wernick.

“What I’m hearing from the young people is that the current climate is raising a lot more concerns, there’s a bit of a backlash,” said Wernick. However, some schools are moving forward to protect the teens, she said.

Wernick said it was a “negotiated process” getting the study, which was conducted during class time, in through the school administrations. “Some schools were excited, some were a little wary, and some clearly didn’t want to go with it.”

Although the survey was limited to 1,000 students in southeast Michigan, Wernick said the rural-suburban-urban context makes it a microcosm.

“It’s an interesting snapshot of the United States.”

]]>
66436
NYC Teens Get Theater Chops and College Prep https://now.fordham.edu/arts-and-culture/nyc-teens-get-theater-chops-and-college-prep/ Tue, 20 Dec 2016 17:00:00 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=59674 For several Sundays over the past semester, Fariso Maswoswe, FCLC ’11, brought together 20 New York City high school students for a theater-based college prep program at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus. On Dec. 11 the students presented a showcase of their work, which was the result of weeks of coaching by current Fordham students, alumni, and Maswoswe. The program was sponsored by Fordham College at Lincoln Center and the Theatre Program.

 

]]>
59674
Measuring How Discrimination Affects Teens’ Sleep https://now.fordham.edu/science/measuring-how-discrimination-affects-teens-sleep/ Wed, 05 Oct 2016 13:00:29 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=57266 Tiffany Yip’s new research will focus on Asian youth, particularly Chinese adolescents.Tiffany Yip, Ph.D., professor of psychology, has received a grant to study the effects of discrimination and sleep disturbance on health among a previously under-researched cohort—Asian youth.

The $400,000 developmental grant is a supplement to an existing grant that focuses on discrimination and sleep patterns of African-American and Latino adolescents. With the new funding from the National Institutes of Health, Yip hopes to include the experiences of Chinese students.

“There has been a lot of research on discrimination among young African Americans and Latinos, but there isn’t much research on Asian-American teens,” said Yip, who directs the Applied Developmental Psychology Program at Fordham.

According to the limited research that does exist, Asian youth report levels of discrimination that are similar to, if not greater than, those experienced by African-American and Latino teens.

Yip is particularly interested in how discrimination among racial and ethnic teens affects sleeping patterns and health since “sleep is so important for the foundation and development of one’s memory over time.”

24-Hour Monitoring

Once a year, ninth-grade students chosen for the two-year study will wear wristwatches for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for two-week periods. They will complete surveys on their daily interactions, emotions, and school activities every evening.

“Think of the watches as more high-tech, data-capturing Fitbits,” said Yip.

She anticipates stronger physical effects, rather than psychological, for the Asian students, such as headaches, stomachaches, loss of appetite, and other physical expressions of stress. That is because research suggests that rather than verbalizing emotions, Asians/Asian Americans are more likely to express their feelings in somatic ways. Therefore, while their levels of depression and anxiety may seem unaffected by discrimination, “we may see stronger effects on sleep and other physical health outcomes,” she said.

“The idea is that if kids experience discrimination in school, they may think less well when they are doing homework that evening,” said Yip. “Over time, discrimination and disturbed sleeping habits may affect focus, and students start to underperform.”

The new grant will support Yip’s research for two years. Her previous grant is currently in its third year, and she hopes this second grant will enable her to draw comparisons across multiple racial and ethnic groups.

“The social, cultural, and historical context of Asian-American teens is very different from African-American and Latino teens,” said Yip, adding that there are more variables to consider, such as immigration status and cultural relationships.

Yip said it was a more difficult process to make a case for studying Asian-American teens, acknowledging the stereotype that Asian Americans have higher performance and academic readiness.

 A Rising Ethnic Group

But for Yip, who is Asian American, the study is critical at this time because Asian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group in the nation.

She hopes that her findings will encourage further global conversations on how to mitigate the effects of discrimination.

“If we find that someone calling you a name makes you sleep poorly at night, it really speaks to the whole connection between the social experiences we have and what happens in our body and to our health.”

-Angie Chen, FCLC ’11

]]>
57266
Social Work Student Asks What Satisfies Middle Managers https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/social-work-student-asks-what-satisfies-middle-managers/ Wed, 18 May 2016 18:35:40 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=47015 In the lobby of The Door, a Manhattan-based social service agency for young people, a teen wore a hoodie and a frown—but broke into a smile when an intake counselor arrived.

And smiles could be seen all around during a tour of the agency given by its deputy executive director, David Vincent, PhD. To even the critical observer, it would seem that the people who work at The Door like their jobs.

The job satisfaction at The Door exemplifies the findings in Vincent’s dissertation, “Commitment to Social Justice and its Influence on Job Satisfaction and Retention of Nonprofit Middle Managers.” He is graduating with a doctorate in social work from the Graduate School of Social Service(GSS).

In a survey of 38 New York-area nonprofit settlement houses, Vincent asked middle managers to rate their awareness of social justice issues and examined how that awareness affected job satisfaction. He found that when managers’ social justice sensitivity aligned with the mission of the organization, their job satisfaction was high, as was job retention.

“When the baby boomers begin to retire, there’s going to be a big gap in the managerial pipeline at nonprofits, so we need to understand what makes employees happy,” said Vincent, who teaches in the leadership track at Fordham as an adjunct professor of social work. “Middle managers are future leaders, so we need to ask how we can help them be better leaders, and what kind of professional development do they need.”

Vincent’s journey into nonprofit work began during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, when many of his friends were dying. He volunteered and worked with HIV-positive youth, and felt like he was making a difference. Vincent later moved to Boston and began working with homeless youth, for which authenticity was essential. “They have to trust you, and you have to meet them where they’re at.”

After returning to New York to work as associate executive director at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, Vincent met Sandra Turner, PhD, a GSS professor and board member at Callen-Lorde who encouraged him to pursue his doctoral degree at Fordham.

“I came here because I could go to school and still work a full-time job,” he said.

Vincent pursued his doctorate taking one or two classes at a time, motivated mainly by ideas of social justice.

Empathy has been key to his work, his research, and his life, he said. Vincent is a white man who helps lead an organization in which most employees are black or Hispanic and most clients are young people of color, so he strives to understand the challenges they face.

“When you work with underserved communities and you want to do your job well, you need to understand racism, and that it is systemic, and that those are the issues that many of your clients and many of your co-workers are dealing with,” he said. “To lead an organization, you have to ‘get’ social justice. You need to understand equity.”

His own upbringing was far from the American mainstream. He grew up in a working-class Portuguese community outside Boston, raised by first generation parents.

“We were very marginalized, so I knew what it was like to come from the lower end of the totem pole and not the dominant part that ruled society,” he said. “It’s just by the grace of God that I had wonderful, supportive parents.”

 

]]>
47015